Empathy and Compassion

 

Empathy and Compassion

 Everybody, I ran restaurants in San Antonio for some 14 years.  I can't tell you how many hours I spent at the door greeting folks or how often the following scenario unfolded.  So come with me in your imagination to my restaurant.

It's Sunday afternoon and I'm at the door to welcome customers.  Coming up the walk is a family with son pushing grandma up to the door in a wheel chair. We scurry to open it and let them in.  After a warm greeting we escort the family over to a dining table, remove one of the chairs and roll Grandma into the spot.  Grandma isn't smiling, seems distant and doesn't say much.  She could be ill.  Everyone orders and the family dines for an hour or so.  They're chatting with each other--we hear them talking about all the things they did that week and what they're planning to do during the week ahead.  After the meal, the family gets up and wheels grandma out the door.  After a warm goodbye on the part of our staff, the door closes behind them.  We think, isn't that nice that the family took grandma out for lunch.  How kind of them to take good care of their elderly relative.

But things aren't always as they seem.

Let's look at that dinner party at my restaurant from the point of view of Grandma.  Her son and family have come to pick her up at the nursing home.  It's a smelly place, but since the family really doesn't have much money, it's all they can afford.  Grandma hasn't seen her family for a month.  For days on end she sits in that nursing home bored out of her mind.  After a very busy life of raising her children, she and her husband had gotten older and most of the children had moved away.  As she became less able to take care of herself, her husband took good care of her best he could, a 24 hour a day strain that took its toll on him.  When he passed away, her family decided to put Grandma into a home where she could get the care she needed.  Every once in a while, her son and family, feeling somewhat guilty, would come get her out of the home and take her to lunch.  No, she wasn't very happy when she came to our restaurant that day.  She knew that after that meal she was going right back to that nursing home again. 

When his father died, son, with 3 children of his own and a limited income, couldn't take his mother in.  Even if they had, there was no one to take care of Grandma since both he and his wife worked to cover the heavy expense of raising the family.   And he didn't want to leave Mom home alone.   She might forget to take her medication or forget to turn off the stove and hurt herself.  So Grandma ended up in a nursing home. She didn't have any choice but to go along with it, even though she would rather have remained in her home.

Folks, why do I bring this up today?  For two reasons.   We live in our own worlds. Our attention is on our own affairs, even as we go to the supermarket to shop.  We don't realize  that just around the corner others are hurting.  Families are struggling to put food on the table.  The elderly are locked away.  When the elderly would come to our restaurant, we gave them respect and kind attention, knowing full well that many of them were hurting.  So what's this all about? Empathy and compassion.  We are not islands.  We live in a world where we need to help each other out.

 After all, who'll be there to help us out when we need it?